College of Visual and Performing Artshttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/9973
Sun, 18 Feb 2018 04:27:53 GMT2018-02-18T04:27:53ZAl-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10351
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016
Irvin, Sarah; Frederick, Helen
Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 is a book arts and cultural festival planned for January through March 2016, throughout the Washington, D.C. area. Exhibits, programs, and events will commemorate the 2007 bombing of Baghdad’s historic bookselling street, and celebrate the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, to stand in solidarity with the people of Iraq, who have endured so much; and with people at home and abroad who are unable to make their voices heard. In 2014 a group of non-profit institutions and passionate individuals came together to discuss their ideas and begin to organize an array of exhibitions, poetry readings, performances, hands-on street festival activities, and educational programs for the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project. These partners include George Mason University’s School of Art and Fenwick Library, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, Split This Rock, McLean Project for the Arts, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University and Georgetown University, Northern Virginia Community College, Cultural DC, Smithsonian Libraries, Brentwood Arts Exchange, Busboys and Poets, and George Mason University Student Media and Fourth Estate Newspaper.
Exhibition Catalog from the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 exhibit at the Fenwick Gallery, George Mason University
http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10351Localehttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/10352
Locale
Irvin, Sarah
Locale features artists’ books, repurposed books, and sculptural books responding to the Washington, DC area through concept or specific material. The exhibit features artwork by George Mason University Alumni, Faculty and Students as well as area artists. The artists used the format or concept of a book to express personal identities, explore local history and record the impact of political, biological or cultural systems in the area.
Exhibition Catalog from the Locale exhibit at the Fenwick Gallery, George Mason University
http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10352Verbal/Visual 2016http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10354
Verbal/Visual 2016
Irvin, Sarah
Creative practice is driven by input or research, even though it is defined by the resulting output or product. A collapse of these categories facilitates new methods of creating and provides alternative routes for the acquisition of knowledge. Verbal/Visual 2016 presents all aspects of the creative process as one. Research and artwork by four MFA students graduating from Mason’s School of Art in Spring 2016 are on view as correspondent parts of a whole.
Artists in the exhibit explore the boundaries of a variety of disciplines, searching for places these boundaries can be pushed and repositioned. They combine traditional methods of research with lived experiences as both research and art practice. These collected experiences and information serve simultaneously as their creative practice and to inspire other manifestations of their work. The result is a curated collection of the knowledge of others, the artists’ embodied knowledge and the visual resources they produce that can be read and experienced as texts in their own right.
Exhibition Catalog from the Verbal/Visual 2016 exhibit at the Fenwick Gallery, George Mason University
http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10354Sealing Place: Impressions of Rome - Tamryn McDermotthttp://hdl.handle.net/1920/10353
Sealing Place: Impressions of Rome - Tamryn McDermott
McDermott, Tamryn; Irvin, Sarah
My methodology emulates that of a historian and enters into the arena of archaeologists, archivists and curators. Historians write, and re-write history privileging certain evidence while imposing specific agendas, to reshape history. Confronting history as a construction; I provoke viewers through historical representation, unmasking illusions of precision and truth. By deconstructing and analyzing the way the historical record is fabricated, my work reveals the futile nature of preserving an accurate history.
Rome is an ideal site to deconstruct and analyze the condition of history; a site rich in rewritten and overwritten political and moral agendas. Historically, the fabric of Rome has been deconstructed and re-stitched since its origins, often rooted in myth and fragmented written records. Taking this history as my subject matter, I turn it into my working process, revealing the limitations of preserving history and accessing historical reality.
In this exhibition, the contextualization of the objects becomes imperative to how the work is perceived. My goal is to redefine the importance of installation and presentation of objects. The objects themselves are important, but become secondary to the structure and organization of the installation. The structural framework is meant to challenge viewers to consider the origins of knowledge about the past and how archaeologists, archivists and curators reinterpret and mythologize historical evidence. Curated displays suggest the research and conclusions imbedded in the objects. The arrangement reflects a stratified composite structure, mirroring written narrative history.
Exhibition Catalog from the Sealing Place: Impressions of Rome exhibit by Tamryn McDermott at the Fenwick Gallery, George Mason University
http://hdl.handle.net/1920/10353